Three years before his death, he wrote In Flanders Fields. Through this single poem, John McCrae became the voice of the dead to many people. Every November 11, we recite “if ye break faith, we shall not sleep” and we feel the loss anew. Many poems have been written about war, yet Flanders Fields stands out.
I wonder why this particular poem stimulates so much reality in our minds and seems so personal to each of us. Is it the topic of war, in general, that we struggle to understand; or is it the topic of death, our own, in particular? We know that each of us will have a last day, a last breathe, one last thought. It is all so personally final, yet so intrinsically vague.
There are words etched on a Polish crypt that, when translated, read “Who I was, you are; who I am, you will surely be.” Such a mystery.
Today I reread In Flanders Fields and hear his voice added to “ we are the dead” and marvel at the sustaining power of words written 90 years and many wars later.
Judy Kaiser
This essay on modern technology was prompted by a Circle discussion on changes members have seen in their lifetimes.
There is no question, gadgets have been invented since the beginning of time to make life easier and simpler for all. In most cases this has proven to be true, and without going back through time to cite obvious examples, we have only to look at some gadgets that have appeared in the past few decades, to see how life, as we live it today, has indeed become much more simplistic.
With the advancements in health, communication, entertainment, and leisure, in this short period of time, we are able to associate this success with the use of ingenious mechanical or electronic gadgets. In health care alone, doctors once relied on x-ray machines for certain illness and indeed still do today, but now they have much more sophisticated equipment in the treatment outpatient's symptoms to locate causes that can be detected with the latest technology, including MRI's, Cat scans, heart monitors, and electronic devices that can be hooked up to patients and record their every movement. No one today would ever want to go back to the old days, particularly as it refers to health care.
In communication, we can look at the improvements in how people are able to converse with one another today, as compared to say 40 years ago. I can recall the day we had our first telephone installed with a four digit number, that we shared on a party line with other people, of course that was back in the early 50's.